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BRIARCLIFF MANOR, N.Y. – The Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District voted 3-2 to eliminate 27 teacher aide positions Monday night.
The positions are scheduled to be eliminated at the end of the school year. The board also agreed in another 3-2 decision Monday night to create 27 teaching assistant positions for the 2012-13 school year.
School board members Sal Maglietta and Jennifer Rosen held the dissenting votes.
"I think the turnover will be huge," Maglietta said before the votes. "It's a fail from my point of view."
Board President Guy Rotondo disagreed.
"I think the research on this was very well done," Rotondo said. "This is a district that, in my opinion, is very much in need of this change."
At a previous meeting, Briarcliff Superintendent of Schools Neal Miller said the district would be making these changes in order for the district to properly comply with New York State Education Department and Commissioner’s Regulations, which “don’t allow teacher aides to instruct students like teaching assistants can.”
Check back with The Daily Briarcliff for further details Tuesday.
Comments (1)
This process of excessing Teacher Aides and replacing them with Teacher Assistants was set in motion well before Neal Miller arrived. The BOE majority (clearly the three that voted FOR this) is behind this. Neal Miller is simply doing as he is told. This is a similar situation to last years fiasco with the changes to the High School schedule where Jim Kashian took all the arrows when he was told to stand in front of a fiery angry community and claim full responsibility for the new schedule.
Let's now watch another card trick as I predict that a large number of students at Todd with IEP (Individualized Learning Plans) will magically be declassified in order to free up some of the Teacher Assistants we already have on staff that are dedicated to special education students. The only way the math works on the plan that has been put forth is if many of those TA's are removed from dedicated special ed and repurposed to general ed.
If you have a child with an IEP, your antenna should be up on this one!!